People who don’t understand what gluten does to the human body are bothered by the Gluten Free label craze. If you don’t understand and don’t care to know, don’t worry about it. These products were always gluten free. It just means they were not made with white enriched wheat flour, barley, or rye. It’s just like labeling something as Dairy Free or Vegan. It doesn’t mean anything except for what ingredients are in it and what ingredients are not in it.

For people who must eat gluten free for their mental and physical well-being, the Gluten Free label is a way to quickly go food shopping without having to read all the ingredients every time, which is time consuming.

It is a strange feeling to be the odd ball out all your life, and then all the sudden, you are the cool kid.

That’s how it feels suffering from Celiac Disease before it was in the public conscious. Thirty years of extreme pain and awful symptoms… with doctors, family, and associates calling you a crazy hypochondriac… and now everyone wants to be in the Gluten Free club?

What happened in the past few years to cause this gluten free explosion? I don’t know. I guess the Internet. With everyone comparing notes, I can only guess that people figured out their gluten intolerance on their own, without doctors, but from the Internet. I happen to figure it out the old fashioned way, from a health magazine.

As a kid, not aware of how to eat healthy, naturally I gravitated towards sugary things that tasted good and so did my mother.

I have to admit that Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles were of my favorite childhood cereals. To walk down the grocery aisle and see them labeled with an enormous blue tag GLUTEN FREE this month, I nearly fell over… and bought them, of course.

Like many products, Pebbles have always been Gluten Free, but now they are labeling it to get the Gluten Free market.

What is shocking to me is that for huge food companies to be changing their labels, that means millions of people around the world have been suffering in silence, just like me. That is heavy. When you suffer some unknown ailment, you feel very alone and alienated.

Physically, mentally, and socially, eating gluten caused the kind of suffering that makes a person want to die, and there were millions of people who felt this way, apparently, millions of people who probably still feel this way because they are unaware of their sensitivity to gluten? That’s just crazy to me.

As the food markets clearly have become hip to the problem, I wonder, have the doctors????

Many mock the gluten free thing when they themselves are suffering, like members of my own family.

By the harassment I still get from the public in casual conversation, I know that the public does not understand how seriously people are affected by gluten, how it is not just a fad but a serious life threatening condition, like cancer or being allergic to bee stings or nuts or intolerant to dairy. People don’t get it yet.

To be honest, even I used to mock people’s various strange eating habits. Back in the day, before I understood my problem, I met many people who ate wheat free. They never explained it to me in a way that made sense to me. They pretty much only said that wheat made them feel tired. Feeling tired didn’t seem like a good enough reason to change one’s entire diet, so I disregarded something that would have changed my life.

There are so many products coming out with Gluten Free labels, it is just astounding. To me, that screams that this is a huge global health problem that lots of people are suffering from gluten.

These old products coming out with Gluten Free labels, I just want you to know, they haven’t changed their recipes.These are products like Cocoa Pebbles were always gluten free. They are just trying to make sure that Celiac Auto-Immune Disease sufferers and gluten intolerant people know they are gluten free and keep buying their products.

Avoiding gluten is one issue. That prevents the stomach aches, the diarrea, the constipation, and all the crazy headtrips that come along with malnutrition.

Avoiding sugar and processed foods is an entirely different thing. Sugars and processed foods like cereals cause blood sugar problems that can also make you crazy, cause anger, irritation, disorientation, fatigue, and diabetes, to name a few.

Eating things like Cocoa Pebbles occasionally won’t kill you. But if you eat them every single day for breakfast, gluten free or otherwise, the sugar and preservatives are not good for your long term health.

My personal goal is to eat as healthy as possible. Part of being healthy is to not completely deprive myself from things that also make me happy. Happiness goes a long way in health. Strive for natural organic whole foods, but if you want something not healthy sometimes, don’t make a big deal about it. Just do it and go back to the regular healthy routine, organic greens and natural proteins.